Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/488

478[April 17, 1869] come and steal away my pet, my puss, and leave me weeping alone."

"Papa," said Geraldine, " a bargain. I'll never marry, if you won't."

"Nonsense, pet," said the colonel.

"Papa, come here." (She drew him towards a mirror that reflected their figures, full length.) "What do you see?"

"A tall gaunt old gentleman, with scant grizzled locks and a scar on his left cheekbone," replied the modest colonel (he might have added, with truth, with a feeble expression about the handsome mouth that belied the stately carriage).

"You see, papa," said Geraldine, indignantly, "what I see—a glory of a man! as good as he is handsome, as brave as he is good—a dear loving papa, who believes his silly puss wise enough to choose her own way of happiness, and that is to remain always—yes, always—with him, and minister to his."

Her father turned, and clasped her to his heart. But he made no other answer.

As the colonel, in his early canter next morning, passed through the neighbouring village, a thought struck him. He pulled up at the door of Monsieur Hyppolite Meritort (called by the English customers Merrythought), barber and gossip agent of the district. Gentlemen shaved, gentlemen partly shaved, and gentlemen waiting to be shaved, were abandoned to Madame Meritort and the assistant, and the barber came bustling forth, The colonel gave him some unimportant order, then carelessly added:

"Mon Port, I hear, has got a tenant."

"An excellent one, my colonel," said the little barber, rubbing his hands; "a lady beautiful, rich, owning we know not what of rents, to trade a benevolence, to the poor an angel of pity. Already madame has commanded twelve silk dresses from our neighbour, Mademoiselle Brefcomte, and soup at discretion, all the Saturdays, for the poor."

"Ah!" said the colonel, pondering. "Soup, eh? and silk? Meritort," he added, "it is not my habit to ask questions about my neighbours; still, I have reasons for wishing to know something of this lady. My daughter"

M. Meritort could not say from whence she had come. The question had been pointedly put to madame's maid (that so remarkable person, who would have been a negro, only that she was white), and the singular answer returned was—what?

"De la mer."

"Aha! A mermaid!" laughed the colonel.

Monsieur Hyppolite respectfully copied the laugh.

"It is possible. Monsieur knows that the baptismal name of madame is Melusina."

Colonel Fonnereau remembered having read of those "monstres bizarres," described by the old French mariners as at once terrible and attractive—ferocious and love-inspiring—and acknowledged, in his own mind—that there were not wanting features of resemblance. He nodded to the little barber, and rode on.

"A siren—with a white nigger for lady's maid! The enigma thickens," thought the colonel. "I must see more of this lady of the sea. Good to the poor, eh? A sympathetic nature. There is something strangely appealing in her face. Seems to have known sorrow. Perhaps the deceased merman was a scamp—drank, or flirted with other sea-belles. Inexcusable, with a si-belle wife of his own!" (The colonel smiled at his own infant pun.) " By Jove, there she is!"

He had arrived nearly opposite a little cottage, from the door of which, at that moment, issued a female figure. In spite of a very homely dress, the colonel at once recognised Mrs. Magniac. She paused, shyly, concealing something under her cotton shawl, and seemed disposed to let him pass; but Fonnereau, quickly alighting, greeted and shook hands with her. Now, for the first time, he scrutinised her countenance. She appeared to him about twenty-six or twenty-seven. A brighter complexion, more perfect brows, whiter teeth, could hardly be conceived. Silk could not rival her glossy hair. Her large hazel eyes certainly had a gleam in them, which might be pronounced green; but there burst from them, at intervals, a lustre little short (the gazer thought) of supernatural.

That she was a singularly beautiful woman, the colonel felt it would be insane to deny; and, as she tripped along by his side, closing up to him occasionally with a pretty terror of that rare and redoubtable animal, the horse, he took himself severely to task for having affected any doubt at all upon the subject. As to her humble dress, which, somehow, sat upon her exquisite figure like robes upon a queen, she laughingly apologised:

"La Pareuse (my maid) scolds me dreadfully, I assure you, for going out 'that figure,' but what would you have? One